WOOTEN NOT WOBBLING: Contrary to rumors, attorney Paul Wooten will not soon drop out of the race for Brooklyn district attorney. That’s bad news for State Senator John Sampson, the leading candidate of the other two blacks in the race (Sandra Roper being the third).

            Regardless, we haven’t found many people who think a Wooten withdrawal would be enough for Sampson to beat incumbent Joe Hynes. One insider, a Hynes supporter, noted that Sampson lacks a star consultant to guide him. But another, an elected official not planning to endorse Hynes, said Sampson himself may be the problem, in which case no consultant could help him.

            Whatever the case, Sampson’s campaign seems stuck in neutral, with no direction or strong message, the official said.

            To cite one example, Sampson tried to score points by criticizing Hynes’s plan for a downtown Brooklyn intake center for victims of domestic violence.

            Instead of a central location with one-stop shopping for all the services victims need, Sampson advocated lots of small offices across the borough because victims prefer to seek help near their homes.

            By way of criticism, that was pretty lame. First, abused women don’t want to be seen by neighbors walking into a domestic violence clinic.

            Second, one-stop shopping for victims’ services makes sense to the average human.

            And third, if there’s one area not to attack Hynes, it’s domestic violence. Even Hynes’s critics concede he’s done well there.

***

            SLOPE BANK CHEERED: Park Slope activists, once apoplectic about a proposed suburban-style Commerce Bank, are thrilled at branch’s re-design.

            Park Slope Neighbors described it as “a red brick building [that] nicely fits the historic character and context of Park Slope. With a grand entrance at the corner of 5th Avenue and 1st Street and tall windows along the sidewalk, the new design has a welcoming feel to it and is in many ways a throwback to bank buildings of old.”

            Assemblywoman Joan Millman, Councilman Bill de Blasio, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery and Rep. Major Owens helped civic leaders change the bank’s plans.

            Amenities of the new bank will include parking for cars and bikes, a water spigot for dogs, and a free coin-counting machine, which should help local Green Party candidates tally up their donations.

***

            JUDGE ADELE COHEN? Assemblywoman Adele Cohen is said to be letting Democratic insiders know of her interest in a Supreme Court judgeship.

            If so, who could blame her? Supreme Court judges serve 14-year terms at $136,700 per annum and are always reelected. Cohen serves two-year terms, has a $79,500 base salary, and twice has won reelection by fewer than 200 votes. “I guess she sees the writing on the wall,” one Democrat said.

            Cohen did not return our e-mail seeking comment.

            Numerous other elected officials in Brooklyn have gone on to become judges, including Assemblyman Frank Barbaro, State Senators Chris Mega and Marty Solomon, and City Councilmen Abe Gerges and William C. Thompson Sr.

            Were Cohen to vacate her seat, it would set off the usual mad scramble that characterizes any open-seat race, and the Russian-American community would surely want to elect its first legislator. But in the event of a special election, the Democratic nominee would be determined by the Democratic County Committee members in the 46th Assembly District (Brighton Beach, Coney Island, Bay Ridge).

            If you don’t know what a county committee is, don’t be ashamed. Few people do. It’s a meaningless body—until there’s a mid-term vacancy. Then it becomes the mechanism Democratic insiders use to pick the party’s nominee. In fact, that’s how Cohen won her seat in the first place, when Jules Polonetsky abandoned it to become a city commissioner.

            Rep. Jerry Nadler, State Senators Carl Kruger and Carl Andrews and Assemblyman William Boyland Jr. were also elected that way.

***

            SURROGATE SOBS (ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK): Brooklyn Surrogate Michael Feinberg was suspended this week after he was unable to justify awarding a pal excessive fees from the estates of dead Brooklynites.

            But don’t feel too sorry for Feinberg. He was suspended with pay pending a final decision by the state’s high court.

            Which could take nine or 12 months.

            How many jobs come with a year of paid vacation? At $136,700 a year?

            It seems to us that it would have been fair for the Court of Appeals to suspend Feinberg without pay because if he were ultimately exonerated, he would be entitled to back pay.

            But if he were not exonerated, he would not have to return the salary he received while suspended.

***

            ABRAHAM HECHT AT BORO HALL: A visit to Brooklyn Borough Hall by controversial Rabbi Abraham Hecht and his Rabbinical Alliance of America drew the ire of one of our readers.

            In June 1995, Hecht offered a religious justification for the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Four months later, Rabin was assassinated. Hecht was banned from Israel for two years, but eventually apologized and was given a reprieve.

            According to a Jewish Press article, at the group’s conference at Borough Hall, Borough President Marty Markowitz spoke of his long friendship with Hecht, who in turn spoke of Markowitz’s long friendship with the alliance.

            The alliance has been described by Hatewatch.org (a subsidiary of the Southern Poverty Law Center), as “an extremist organization opposed to basic human rights.”

            In 1997 the group said it would boycott the U.S. Holocaust Museum if it referred to gay victims of the Holocaust. Such material would be “a perversion” an alliance spokesman testified before Congress, adding, “Do we have a prostitutes’ exhibit?”

            The alliance’s homophobia apparently persists: The Jewish Press account of the Borough Hall event included a detailed description of the group’s fight against gay rights in Jerusalem.

            We e-mailed the reader’s complaint to Markowitz, who replied:

            “This group asked permission to hold one of their breakfast meetings at Borough Hall and at no time did I or any member of my staff participate in their agenda, and other than a brief opening remark, I was not present during the course of their meeting. Many organizations have meetings and receptions at Borough Hall. It is a “public” facility. I do not have to personally agree with each group’s agenda nor do I or my staff “screen” the organization’s purpose or agenda for their gathering in Borough Hall.”

            That didn’t satisfy the reader, who asked rhetorically if a Muslim cleric who’d called for the Israeli prime minister’s assassination would be welcome at Borough Hall.

***

            ROBIN BROWN MYSTERY: The Daily News made a splash when it reported that United Parents Association President Robin Brown had resigned her post, been arrested, and spent three days in jail on charges that she stole money from the parents group.

            But Brown’s side of the story hasn’t come out yet, and if what she’s telling friends proves true, the case against her could quickly fall apart.

            Brown, rumored to be Assemblyman Roger Green’s choice to succeed him, allegedly wrote 20 checks to herself from the United Parents Association account.

            She insists any such checks were reimbursements for legitimate expenses, a friend of hers told us. But she was arrested without having a real opportunity to show that.

            Asked by a detective to answer some questions, Brown came down during her lunch break on February 15 with no attorney. During the interview, she apparently realized she might be the accused and called her lawyer.

            As defense lawyers always do, she told Brown to say nothing. Brown was then arrested and charged with third-degree grand larceny. Because of bad timing with judges and faulty paperwork, it took three days for her to get out.

            Brown is due in court May 23. The Manhattan district attorney’s office is handling the case.

            Two United Parents Association board members with whom Brown had been feuding told the detective that last summer Brown wrote and cashed UPA checks totaling over $13,000, was not authorized to write the checks, and was not owed any money by the group.

            Brown’s friend told us she has no obvious financial pressures that would motivate her to steal $13,000, and that any intelligent person (as Brown is) wouldn’t attempt to embezzle money simply by writing checks to herself, endorsing them herself, and cashing them herself. That’s the equivalent of a burglar dipping his fingertips in fresh ink before ransacking a house.

            Furthermore, the source said, Brown had been trying to revamp the UPA’s sloppy accounting which she believed allowed other folks to play games with UPA money.

***

            CORRECTION: A Democratic insider corrected our February 21 column which stated that of the Brooklyn Democrats who endorsed Republican George Pataki in 2002, only State Senator Carl Kruger had a practical reason for doing so.

            “So did [Assemblyman] Dov Hikind,” the source reported. “Pataki has steered millions of dollars in state funds to groups that are close to Dov. No way [Hikind] was ever going to shut down that pipeline.”

            Hikind had a long relationship with the Democratic nominee, Carl McCall, and had endorsed him in past races, but realized McCall was going to lose to Pataki, the source explained. So Hikind endorsed Pataki.

            And so it is expected that Hikind will abandon the governor in favor of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, since it looks like Spitzer will be controlling Albany’s purse strings after 2006. Hikind “would jump in a millisecond to keep the pipeline open,” the source said.

***

            TIDBITS: Councilman Bill de Blasio endorsed Freddy Ferrer for mayor, matching the endorsement of Brooklyn’s other City Council speaker candidate, Councilman Lew Fidler.

            In doing so, de Blasio rebuffed overtures by Council Speaker Gifford Miller, whom de Blasio apparently thinks is not going to win the mayoral race.

            “I think it’s crucial that the Democrats take back City Hall,” de Blasio told us. Of Ferrer, he said, “He has absolutely the best chance to win.”

            Ferrer probably would have beaten Mike Bloomberg in 2001 had Ferrer won the Democratic primary runoff against Mark Green, de Blasio said…

            …Indicted Supreme Court Judge Gerald Garson told CBS News he was “intercepted” by the authorities while on his way to return the $1,000 given to him by an attorney whose case he was hearing, and was about to turn in the attorney. Garson also said his dog ate his homework…

            …Foes of Bruce Ratner’s arena and building project recently sent a press release headlined, “Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, Norman Siegel, Brooklyn Clergy, Harlem Community Organizers Say, ‘Never Again!’” That’s a phrase normally associated with Holocaust memorials. We asked Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don’t Destroy about it.

            “We’re certainly not comparing Ratner to the Holocaust. Never crossed our minds,” he replied. Rather, they were referring to the abuse of eminent domain…

            …In a letter to the editor of this paper, City Council candidate Eric Blackwell of Fort Greene asks if Councilwoman Tish James would support in the general election someone who defeated her in the Democratic primary, should the party grant her permission to run in it. It is a rhetorical question, of course.

            James has run on the Working Families Party line against the Democratic primary winner in each of the last two 35th Council District elections: in 2001 against James Davis (she lost) and in 2003 against his brother Geoffrey Davis (she won). Surely she would do so again…

            …Left-wingers are wondering if President Bush’s proposal to partially privatize Social Security will give them an opening to defeat Rep. Vito Fossella in 2006. Fossella told NY1 that opponents of the Bush plan are effectively advocating a future cut in Social Security benefits and/or an increase in taxes. But Republicans have had trouble making the case that private accounts, after fees are deducted and the debt to establish them is paid off, would achieve greater returns than the Social Security trust fund, which returns 3 percent over inflation…

            …Brooklyn district attorney candidate Sandra Roper didn’t hesitate to tell voters she was running despite being under an indictment motivated by her campaign against incumbent Joe Hynes in 2001.

            In fact, Roper mentioned it so often, she could no longer pretend to be running despite the indictment. Because of it was closer to the truth. The indictment had become the centerpiece of her campaign.

            But on February 28, the charges were dismissed when Roper agreed to repay $9,000 she was accused of stealing from a client who said Roper promised to work pro bono. Thus Roper will need a new campaign theme. Rest assured it won’t be her experience running a large department or as a prosecutor…

            …Councilman Kendall Stewart came out in favor of a West Side stadium, a likely prelude to a formal endorsement of pro-stadium Mayor Mike Bloomberg later this year. Stewart, a Democrat, came under fire last year for saying the Republican mayor deserves another term. But he’s endorsed Republicans before, notably George Pataki in 2002…

            …Rep. Anthony Weiner is reaffirming his support for gay marriage despite trying to court more conservative outer-borough voters in his run for mayor. The Park Slope native told The New York Times, “At the end of the day, voters respect the idea that you’re speaking from your sense of beliefs and not for a political calculation.” Weiner’s position cost him some Orthodox support in his 1988 campaign for Congress, but he won anyway.

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